Now 40,000 images in the waiting list at DT.  Looks like they are being swamped.  Presumably its the higher prices and higher commissions per sale.

yeah, but not this long.... I've been waiting over a week on a batch and the counter says 40 hours to go.   Problem is, the counter's been going back up too....    what's that all about?      -tom

Review times suck at DT but they finally get there. I try to upload a couple everyday so I always have something in the queue. They do set the counter back as well. Best just to keep some in the queue and be patient.

DT isn't my favorite site but they're too big to ignore if you sell microstock. The payout is good when you can get it. My sales have risen over the past month so I'm hopeful that I will see more payouts soon.

They suck a whole lot on the waiting times. you wait and wait. you upload a stack of images and then they reject them. if you say something about their waiting times or rejections it is called sour grapes.

they need to spend some of their cash and start employing reviewers and having people delete the old non selling stuff

The high number of images in the queue tells me that Dreamstime is the place where people want to be.

That is not what the #s tell me.

If what are saying is true, then their online #s should be increasing faster than any other microstock.  But their not.

In the past week:
FT claims that they have increased by over 61,000 images, but it is probably less than half that
SS has increased by almost 29,000 images
IS has increased by over 24,000 images
DT has increased by almost 20,000 images
BigStock has increased by about 19,000 images

What the #s suggest to me is that they don't have enough reviewers.

Ellen:

Saying that reviewers have to sleep is a totally useless statement.

We all have to sleep.  That is a fact of human nature.

The problem with Dreamstime is that their review queue is getting larger and the review times are getting longer.

There are currently almost 41,000 images in the review queue and reviews currently take about 10 days.

There are currently less than 21,000 images in the IS queue, and reviews have been taking around 4-5 days.

SS reviews typically take a day or so, and can be reviewed within hours of submittal sometimes.

FT also typically review images within a day or so.

Funny thing is that all of those other sites get more images than DT, yet they seem to review them quicker.  I would imagine that the reviewers at those sites also sleep.

So Dreamstime seems to be the only major site that can't review images in less than a week.

On top of that, their review process is one of the worst in the business.  They seem to randomly reject images or give some sort of bogus reason for rejection ("not stockworthy", "we have too many of these", etc).

I would suggest that you (as a company) stop coming up with lame excuses and fix the issues that everyone has been complaining about.

This is so funny to me coming from the traditional stock business where three to four week review period is considered very short. But I'm certain that your issues will be addressed.

I'm sure that < $10 sales and 10,000 sales a day are "funny" to you as well.

Let's face it.  Microstock is not macrostock.  It's a new paradigm.  You better get with it or you will get left behind.

On top of that, their review process is one of the worst in the business.  They seem to randomly reject images or give some sort of bogus reason for rejection ("not stockworthy", "we have too many of these", etc).

Agreed that their reviews are the longest,  but for me, when they are reviewed, they are very consistent. It's just different strokes for different folks. IStock is by far the worst in review consistency for me - I'm sure everyone has their own opinion.

Review time doesn't concern me all that much unless I was exclusive there,  just keep taking pictures, eventually they'll get reviewed, and they'll be already selling on the sites with the quicker turn around.

Big question:  Why is review time important?

1. The competition does it much faster.

If you upload to all of the sites at once, your images will show up first on Shutterstock and Fotolia, followed by Istock and a slew of others, and then finally Dreamstime.  So by the time Dreamstime gets your images online, they are already "stale".

2. The internet is all about speed.  If Amazon can take an order, fill it, and ship it to you in less than a week, then Dreamstime should be able to review an image much quicker.  After all, reviewers spend less than 30 seconds reviewing each image, and some only spend about 10 seconds per image.

Ideally, we should have our seasonal images online months in advance, when designers are looking for them.

While true designers are a part of the overall customer base, most customers are not so savvy.  Most customers are mom-and-pop shops, non-profits, web site designers, people creating a card for a loved one, etc.  They don't plan months ahead.  They do it on the fly, just like you and me.

Quote from: boughn on April 09, 2007, 13:28

I wanted to take a look at your images but I can't find them on Dreamstime. Do you have a different user name than you are using here? Thanks!

Why?  Are you looking to mark my images for rejection?

You must be kidding. You aren't serious are you? Then you would have something to complain about. I'm a visual person. Just like some people like to connect a face with a name, I like to connect images to a name. But if your work isn't on Dreamstime, it may not be fair for you to complain. But no problem. Bye

StockManiac: The Director of Content and Business Development asks to look at your portfolio. Your response: Question her motives and insult her. Way to go. Smooth move. Real smooth.

She writes a blog that many users access on a daily basis (who wouldn't?). You may have received free publicity. You may have been able to bend her ear so that she could influence the DT powers that be to address your concerns. She may have been a valuable resource to this forum. Furthermore, she's very new to this site, and this was only her second post here - I'm sure she feels very welcome now.

Nice work!

Stockmaniac, take a deep breath and look through the DT site.  One thing I like to do is read between the lines and see what's going on.

1) Have you seen the thread announcing the new reviewer?
2) Have you seen the thread THANKING the reviewer that resigned in the off topic section?
3) Have you seen the busiest photographer list lately?  Most of the folks that are on that list have a lot of images online and are high volume producers.  Have you seen that Iofoto is on that list?  Clicked on his portfolio?  That's over 3,300 images uploaded in the past month.  There are others that are moving there portfolio there as well and the rate of images going up is unprecedented since the time I've been on the site.

Review time is a dynamic thing.  I've had iStock take 2 weeks in the past (when I contributed there) and I've had DT review in a matter of a day or two.  If it makes you feel any better, I've had Canstock review in a matter of minutes.  It's all an elastic process.

I hate to say this but if your images are getting stale over the course of 2 weeks, then your submitting the wrong types of images to sell as stock.

StockManiac: The Director of Content and Business Development asks to look at your portfolio. Your response: Question her motives and insult her. Way to go. Smooth move. Real smooth.

She writes a blog that many users access on a daily basis (who wouldn't?). You may have received free publicity. You may have been able to bend her ear so that she could influence the DT powers that be to address your concerns. She may have been a valuable resource to this forum. Furthermore, she's very new to this site, and this was only her second post here - I'm sure she feels very welcome now.

Yes, she might have been able to do all of those illustrious things, but instead here is how she responded to this thread (which was about the large inspection queue at DT):

- She first stated that reviewers have to sleep and take the Easter holidays off.  A useless statement as I said before, especially since the queue has been this large for a long time before Easter weekend.

- She compares microstock to macrostock.

- She asked to look at my portfolio.  Once again, something that has nothing to do with this thread.

If you don't understand her tactics, it is to take your eyes off of the original issue and try to focus it elsewhere.  From your comments, it seems like it is working.

If she really wanted to do something about the issue, she would have asked for more comments and stated that she would bring it up with management.